Auschwitz - The Final Count by Michael Collins Piper

A thought-provoking new anthology

edited by English historian Vivian Bird casts

stark new light on what really happened at

Auschwitz during World War II. As the

evidence shows, the official "facts" just don't

add up.

In the summer of 1997 I was invited to speak at a California

college seminar about my book, Final Judgment, which contends that

Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, played a front-line role in the

JFK assassination conspiracy alongside the CIA. Almost

instantaneously I was hit by a media barrage orchestrated by the

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, a lobby for Israel.

The ADL told the press I was "a Holocaust denier" and, for that

reason alone, I should not be allowed to discuss my book (which,

incidentally, never once mentions the Holocaust). Evidently the ADL

was determined to shift the focus away from what my book really

does address, so they determined the best way to discredit me was to

smear me as "a Holocaust denier" (which I am not).

The ADL's tactic succeeded, setting off a firestorm of opposition-

a "holocaust," so to speak-and the seminar was canceled, illustrating

one point most clearly: The Holocaust has become a powerful

propaganda tool for the state of Israel.

And what is important to remember is this: What did-or did not-

happen at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland is, in fact,

integral to the foundation of the basic story of the Holocaust.

Auschwitz is central to the Holocaust legend. If it can be proved

that the official stories we have been told about Auschwitz are not

true, the entire fabric of the Holocaust ultimately has to unravel.

What, then, did happen at Auschwitz?

On April 18, 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II,

The New York Times reported that 4 million people died at

Auschwitz. This "fact" was reported over and over again during the

next half-century, without being questioned.

However, on January 26, 1995, commemorating the 50th

anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, both The Washington Post

and The New York Times itself reported that the Polish authorities

had determined that, at most, 1.5 million people (of all races and

religions)-not "4 million"-died at Auschwitz of all causes, including

natural causes.

Yet this was not the first time this drastically reduced figure

appeared in the major media. Almost five years previously, on July

17, 1990, The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The

London Daily Telegraph. That article stated:

Poland has cut its estimate of the number of people killed by the

Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp from 4 million to just over 1

million . . . The new study could rekindle the controversy over the

scale of Hitler's "final solution" . . .

Franciszek Piper, director of the historical committee of the

Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, said yesterday that, according to

recent research, at least 1.3 million people were deported to the camp,

of whom about 223,000 survived.

The 1.1 million victims included 960,000 Jews, between 70,000

and 75,000 Poles, nearly all of the 23,000 Gypsies sent to the camp

and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

Shmuel Krakowsky, head of research at Israel's Yad Vashem

memorial for Jewish victims of the Holocaust, said the new Polish

figures were correct: "The 4 million figure was let slip by Capt.

Rudolf Hoess, the death camp's Nazi commander. Some have bought

it, but it was exaggerated." . . . [P]laques commemorating the deaths

of 4 million victims were removed from the Auschwitz museum

earlier this month.

This detail of history was intriguing, since, after all, history

books had said for a generation that of the 6 million Jews who died

during the Holocaust, 4 million died at Auschwitz alone. Thus, if the

new facts were correct, the actual overall number of Jewish Holocaust

victims had to be considerably less than the much-talked-about

figure of 6 million. Put simply: subtract the former 4 million Jews

dead at Auschwitz from the popular 6 million, and that leaves 2

million Jews dead. Simple math-and a controversial conclusion

indeed.

More recently, Walter Reich, former director of the U.S.

Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, jumped into the debate

over Auschwitz. On September 8, 1998, The Washington Post

published an article by Reich in which he addressed Jewish outrage

over a group of elderly Polish nuns who wanted to place crosses in

memory of Christians who died at Auschwitz. Reich was responding

to what he described as a "well-meaning" August 31, 1998 editorial in

The Post about the affair.

Reich commented that the editorial "illustrates how old fictions

about Auschwitz have been accepted as facts-fictions that have been

used repeatedly to distort the camp's history." Evidently, the Post had

forgotten its own report on the Auschwitz numbers that it had

published three years previously and chose, instead, to repeat "old

fictions . . . accepted as facts." What, then, were those "old fictions . . .

accepted as facts"? Here's what Reich had to say:

The Post identified Auschwitz-Birkenau as the death camp

"where 3 million Jews and millions of others were murdered by the

Nazis." Recent scholarship by a Polish historian has put the number

of deaths there conservatively at about 1.1 million, with other

estimates ranging to about 1.5 million. Approximately 90 percent of

the dead were Jews.

The Post's numbers may have been derived in part from the

inflated estimate-originally of Soviet origin and endorsed by Polish

authorities after the war-of about 4 million dead. This number, and

other numbers of similar magnitude, were repeated so often that they

came to be accepted by many as true, even though historians in

Poland and elsewhere have revised this number down considerably.

Honest people find no problem with Reich's call (in the essay)

for "only words of accurate history" in reportage about Auschwitz.

Today, a major first step toward "only words of accurate history" is

the release of a new anthology on Auschwitz, assembled by English

writer Vivian Bird.

Auschwitz: The Final Count examines the "new" reports in the

mainstream media (outlined above) and provides essential additional

facts that must be considered in order for the full story of Auschwitz

to finally be told. Bird's 109-page book is a compendium

(supplemented with commentary by Bird) of four complete,

previously published works relating to Auschwitz and the Holocaust.

The book features a fascinating introduction by Bird exploring

the little-known but thoroughly documented phenomenon in which

the numbers of the official Auschwitz "death toll" have plummeted

from a "high" of 9,000,000 dead to a rock bottom of 73,137 (of whom

38,031 were Jews). And readers will note that of the 26 widely

varying figures cited by Bird, all come from a variety of "responsible"

and mainstream sources. No figure Bird cites comes from any source

accused of "denying the Holocaust," whatever that means.

Clearly, the number of people who died at Auschwitz is central

to understanding what did happen there. But the figures keep

changing. If Bird's book proves anything, it proves that.

However, there's much more to Auschwitz than the changing

numbers. The essays in Bird's volume each provide a uniquely

different facet to the overall problem:

* The Auschwitz Lie by Thies Christophersen is an insider's

view of Auschwitz. The German author, an agrarian, was sent to

Auschwitz, not as an inmate, but as a scientist researching the

development of synthetic rubber. Working side by side with inmate

staff, Christophersen saw, firsthand, day-to-day life at Auschwitz

and, in postwar years, was astounded to hear the stories of "gassings"

and all the tall tales that we today associate with Auschwitz.

His essay, The Auschwitz Lie, first published in German in 1973,

caused great consternation. However, Christophersen would not

back down, and, as a consequence, he was variously fined or

imprisoned for daring to tell his eyewitness account. Those

accustomed to "docu-drama" renditions of Auschwitz will find a new

perspective in Christophersen's report.

* Zyklon B, Auschwitz, and the Trial of Dr. Bruno Tesch is the

second feature in Bird's anthology. Written by a veteran chemist, the

late Dr. William Lindsey, this is a carefully documented demolition

of the war crimes trial of Dr. Tesch, who was ultimately convicted

and hanged. The unfortunate Tesch was co-owner of a company

which bought in bulk (from the manufacturers) and then supplied (as

the middleman) to the German concentration camp authorities the

now-infamous Zyklon B pesticide.

Although we have been told Zyklon B was used to gas millions

of Jews to death, Lindsey shows that the compound was used as an

insecticide and disinfectant to delouse not only the Auschwitz

inmates but also SS members running the camp and to fumigate their

clothes, bunkhouses etc. Zyklon B, in short, was used to maintain and

sustain human life-not to end it. Lindsey's essay examines the

fraudulent evidence and testimony in the Tesch trial and eviscerates

another critical element of not only the Auschwitz legend, but of the

Holocaust story as a whole.

* Inside the Auschwitz "Gas Chambers" is by Fred A. Leuchter, a

spunky American engineer once known as perhaps the foremost U.S.

authority on the mechanics of judicial execution. Leuchter describes

how he conducted scientific experiments on the structures at

Auschwitz that court historians say were used to exterminate vast

numbers of people-the infamous gas chambers. Leuchter concluded

no such gassings could have ever taken place as the official story

describes. For daring to present his findings-the only known such

study carried out at the gas chambers-Leuchter was relentlessly

harassed. But his point was made. His findings cut right to the core of

the matter of Auschwitz.

* The final essay is Why Is "The Holocaust" Important? written

by TBR publisher Willis A. Carto, who points out that the Holocaust

has become a lucrative industry unto itself, used as a highly effective

political tool to not only extort billions of German and American

taxpayer dollars to Israel but also to force the United States to

conduct its foreign policy in a fashion beneficial to Tel Aviv (and

contrary to U.S. national interests). Carto's essay puts the Holocaust

in perspective.

Thus, there's clearly much more to the story of Auschwitz and

the Holocaust than meets the eye. The facts assembled paint a

perhaps much more interesting story about what really did happen.

Bird's book will, in many ways, very much serve as the final

judgment on Auschwitz. Auschwitz: The Final Count will outrage

many-but as Bird puts it: "For those who care to investigate the facts-

not the myths-about the events of World War II, this volume should

put at least some of the major legends of the Holocaust to rest."

--------------

Michael Collins Piper is the author of Final Judgment: The

Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy and Best Witness.

He is a keen student of historical intrigue and hidden political

motivations.

Auschwitz: The Final Count, paperback, 109 pages, is available

from the TBR Book Club for $12.95 plus $3 S&H; $6 S&H outside the

U.S. TBR subscribers get 10% off. Send payment to TBR, 130 Third

Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.

www.barnesreview.org/aushwitz.html

Argument Boils About

Numbers of Auschwitz Dead

The Numbers Decline, the Controversy Increases

It is past time for an international investigation conducted by

truly impartial scientists, researchers and scholars into the reality of

Auschwitz to properly and as accurately as possible bring history

into accord with the facts. Peoples of all religions and persuasions

have a right to such facts. So far, as the following data demonstrates,

we are a long way from a consensus on the truth of what happened at

Auschwitz in WWII.

9,000,000

Source: Cited by the French documentary, Night and Fog, which

has been shown to millions of school students worldwide.

8,000,000

Source: The French War Crime Research Office, Doc. 31, 1945.

7,000,000

Source: Also cited by the French War Crime Research Office.

6,000,000

Source: Cited in the book Auschwitz Doctor by Miklos Nyiszli.

It has since been proven that this book is a fraud and the "doctor" was

never even at Auschwitz, even though the book is often cited by

historians.

5,000,000 to 5,500,000

Source: Cited in 1945 at the trial of Auschwitz commander

Rudolf Höss, based on his confession which was written in English, a

language he never spoke.

5,000,000

Source: Cited on April 20, 1978 by the French daily, Le Monde.

Also cited on January 23, 1995 by the German daily Die Welt. By

September 1, 1989, Le Monde reduced the figure to 1,433,000.

4,500,000

Source: In 1945 this figure was cited by another witness at the

aforementioned Höss trial.

4,000,000

Source: Cited by a Soviet document of May 6, 1945 and officially

acknowledged by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. This figure was

also reported in The New York Times on April 18, 1945, although 50

years later on January 26, 1995, The New York Times and The

Washington Post slashed the figure to 1,500,000 citing new findings

by the Auschwitz Museum officials. In fact, the figure of 4,000,000

was later repudiated by the Auschwitz museum officials in 1990 but

the figure of 1,500,000 victims was not formally announced by Polish

President Lech Walesa until five years after the Auschwitz historians

had first announced their discovery.

3,500,000

Source: Cited in the 1991 edition of the Dictionary of the French

Language and by Claude Lanzmann in 1980 in his introduction to

Filip Muller's book, Three Years in an Auschwitz Gas Chamber.

3,000,000

Source: Cited in a forced confession by Rudolf Höss, the

Auschwitz commander who said this was the number of those who

had died at Auschwitz prior to Dec. 1, 1943. Later cited in the June 7,

1993 issue of Heritage, the most widely read Jewish newspaper in

California, even though three years previously the authorities at the

Auschwitz museum had scaled down the figure to a minimum of

1,100,000 and a maximum of 1,500,000. (see below).

2,500,000

Source: Cited by Rudolf Vrba (an author of various fraudulent

accounts of events he claims to have witnessed at Auschwitz) when

he testified on July 16, 1981 for the Israeli government's war crimes

trial of former SS official Adolf Eichmann.

2,000,000

Source: Cited by Leon Poliakov (1951) writing in Harvest of

Hate; Georges Wellers, writing in 1973 in The Yellow Star at the Time

of Vichy; and Lucy Dawidowicz, writing in 1975 in The War Against

the Jews.

2,000,000 to 4,000,000

Source: Cited by Yehuda Bauer in 1982 in his book, A History of

the Holocaust. However, by 1989 Bauer revised his figure to

1,600,000.

1,600,000

Source: This is a 1989 revision by Yehuda Bauer of his earlier

figure in 1982 of 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, Bauer cited this new figure on

September 22, 1989 in The Jerusalem Post, at which time he wrote

"The larger figures have been dismissed for years, except that it hasn't

reached the public yet."

1,500,000

Source: In 1995 this was the number of Auschwitz deaths

announced by Polish President Lech Walesa as determined by those

at the Auschwitz museum. This number was inscribed on the

monument at the Auschwitz camp at that time, thereby "replacing"

the earlier 4,000,000 figure that had been formally repudiated (and

withdrawn from the monument) five years earlier in 1990. At that

time, on July 17, 1990 The Washington Times reprinted a brief article

from The London Daily Telegraph citing the "new" figure of 1,500,000

that had been determined by the authorities at the Auschwitz

museum. This new figure was reported two years later in a UPI

report published in the New York Post on March 26, 1992. On

January 26, 1995 both The Washington Post and The New York Times

cited this 1,500,000 figure as the new "official" figure (citing the

Auschwitz Museum authorities).

1,471,595

Source: This is a 1983 figure cited by Georges Wellers who (as

noted previously) had determined, writing in 1973, that some

2,000,000 had died.

1,433,000

Source: This figure was cited on September 1, 1989 by the French

daily, Le Monde, which earlier, on April 20, 1978, had cited the figure

at 4,000,000.

1,250,000

Source: In the book, The Destruction of the European Jews, by

Raul Hilberg (1985).

1,100,000 to 1,500,000

Source: Sources for this estimate are Yisrael Gutman and

Michael Berenbaum in their 1984 book, Anatomy of the Auschwitz

Death Camp. This estimate was later also cited by Walter Reich,

former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, writing in

The Washington Post on September 8, 1998. The upper figure of

1,500,000 is (the new) "official" figure as now inscribed at Auschwitz,

with the earlier figure of 4,000,000 having been removed from the

memorial at the site of the former concentration camp.

1,000,000

Source: Jean-Claude Pressac, writing in his 1989 book

Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers. This is

interesting since he wrote his book to repudiate so-called "Holocaust

deniers" who were called that precisely because they had questioned

the numbers of those who had died at Auschwitz.

900,000

Source: Reported on August 3, 1990 11, by Aufbau, a Jewish

newspaper in New York.

800,000 to 900,000

Source: Reported by Gerald Reitlinger in his book, The Final

Solution.

775,000 to 800,000

Source: Jean-Claude Pressac's revised figure, put forth in his

1993 book, The Crematoria of Auschwitz: The Mass Murder's

Machinery, scaling down his earlier claim of 1,000,000 dead.

630,000 to 710,000

Source: In 1994 Pressac scaled his figure down somewhat

further; this is the figure cited in the German language translation of

Pressac's 1993 book originally published in French. Again, this is

substantially less than Pressac's 1989 figure of 1,000,000.

135,000 to 140,000

Source: This is an estimate based on documents held by the

International Tracing Service of the Red Cross. It is known that

International Tracing Service has a complete set of registration

documents. This is thought to include a complete set of roll-call data

which includes twice daily tallies of those who died. Although the

International Tracing Service of the Red Cross has such records, they

have never officially published an accurate count of those who died,

or even an accurate report as to exactly which documents they hold.

However, totals from these records have been obtained by various

interested parties.

The estimate of 135,500 is roughly corroborated by the

"Auschwitz death books." The death books themselves are wartime

German camp records, which were captured by the Soviets towards

the end of the war, and hidden in Soviet achieves, until released to

the Red Cross in 1989.

The death books consist of 46 volumes which document each

death at Auschwitz (each death certificate consists of the deceased

person's full name, profession and religion, date and place of birth,

pre-Auschwitz residence, parents' names, time of death, and cause of

death as determined by a camp physician). The records for the most

important years, 1942 and 1943, are almost complete (there are also a

few volumes for the year 1941, but none for the year 1944 or January

1945 (when Auschwitz was evacuated)).

The Auschwitz death books contain the death certificates of

some 69,000 individuals, of whom about 30,000 were listed as Jews.

You may view various entries in the Auschwitz Death Books by

clicking on the following links to the Auschwitz museum:

Using all available wartime records from the various camps it

has been estimated that between 400,000 and

500,000 people died in the German concentration camp system

(from all causes).

The ever declining numbers of alleged dead at Auschwitz, are

graphically illustrated by the plaques from the camp.

The first is the plaque that was on display at the Auschwitz

camp from 1948 until 1989 and states "4 million" victims.

The second plaque currently on display at Auschwitz has the

dramatically reduced number of victims, now only 1.5 million.

A casual reduction in the number of deaths by some 2.5 million.

Deaths at Auschwitz drop by a stunning 2.5 million, but the

legendary 6,000,000 figure remains the same.